Float

Away

Photo by Alexander McFeron on Unsplash

It’s not until you
let your shoulders
sink into the spiral wooden
sauna planks or breathe deeply
through each sweat bead, or
bead of sweat from a eucalyptus
steam room, to then
loosen like a white spool of thread
unraveling
across
the
steps
of your back as a slinky
between her fingertips
kneading the knots out
like the brush strokes
it takes to free your long locks—
one by one, thread by thread
dread by dread
until I actually…